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Seldom if ever have pop singles sold as fast as they have in the last weeks of summer. Since the popularity of a 45 often attaches itself to the LP from which it came or which it hastily inspires, sales of albums too are soaring. Some of the fast-moving LPs, all lifted up the charts by a two-minute tune:
EVERYBODY LOVES SOMEBODY (Reprise) was also the title of Dean Martin's million-selling single and is surrounded here by other songs (Baby-O, My Heart Cries for You, A Little Voice) awash with similarly sudsy sentiments. Dino swallows his consonants and sounds as though he has no bones, but who cares when he sings such warm things?
I DON'T WANT TO BE HURT ANYMORE (Capitol) was the hit in Nat King Cole's anthology for jilted lovers, including Only Yesterday, You're Crying on My Shoulder, Road to Nowhere, and Was That the Human Thing to Do?. It seems as though Everybody Hurts Somebody.
ALL SUMMER LONG (Capitol). "My buddies and me are gittin' real well known," sing the Beach Boys, who sailed over a million with / Get Around. The Beach Boys feature the good California life, just surfing and riding their "groovy little Hondas." But the end of all this Fun, Fun, Fun may be in sight. "We know they're right when they say we're not ready," sings one treble boyish voice. "We'll run away and get married anyhow."
RAG DOLL (Philips). The Four Seasons resemble the Beach Boys in playing arrangements scored primarily for guitars and cash registers. Philosophically, however, they tend to be more conservative. It was they who warned Dawn to go away, and now along comes this sad rag doll. "I'd change her sad rags into glad rags if I could," sings the hero, "but my folks won't let me."
HONEY IN THE HORN (RCA Victor). Trumpeter Al Hirt piped such a jolly rendition of Java that he's had nothing but good news ever since. Honey, with Java in it, remains in perpetual motion in the record shops, and now two more bestselling collections have flowed from Hirt's horn of plenty: Cotton Candy and Sugar Lips.
ROGER AND OUT (Smash). Roger Miller is the noisiest sinner in or out of Nashville. He spent the grocery money and half the rent on liquor and then jammed the air waves confessing. "Dang me, they ought to take a rope and hang me," he keeps singing. Nobody is arguing with him, but so far the only action against him has been taken by Ruby Wright, who sings an answer to Dang Me called Dern Ya. In the meanwhile Miller has gone on writing songs like those that fill this album, e.g., Squares Make the World Go Round.
CINEMA
TOPKAPI. Melina Mercouri and Peter Ustinov make a jewel theft in Istanbul look like grand foolery in Director Jules Dassin's niftiest caper since Rififi.
THE APE WOMAN. Italian Director Marco Ferreri creates a sublime parable of man's inhumanity out of this squalid tale about a fast-buck promoter who meets, marries and makes a freak show of a girl (Annie Girardot) covered from head to toe with brown silky hair.
MARY POPPINS. In Walt Disney's drollest movie in years, Julie Andrews works miracles as the rosy-cheeked young nanny who slides up bannisters and whisks the kiddies off to the airier reaches of a fantasy that offers many more lifts than lapses.